


An Unexpected Outing

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: F/M, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-27
Updated: 2012-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:30:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hawkeye has a very, very nice evening.</p><p>[Compatible with either 'verse.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unexpected Outing

**Author's Note:**

> And thus began the addiction. I'm going to be on that "Intervention" show pretty soon.

“Lieutenant,” Roy said.

In the past, Hawkeye had tried to think of it as pathetic—the fact that if Roy Mustang snapped his fingers, she would be there faster than the flame.

But it wasn’t pathetic. It was a loyalty so genuine as to verge on love, and that was a currency that had almost stopped being minted nowadays. There was no shame in that—no shame in dedication of incalculable depth.

“Sir?” she said.

The brilliant, urbane, inimitable Roy Mustang put his feet up on his desk and yawned without covering his mouth.

“I had a date tonight,” he said, “but the girl canceled on me.”

Hawkeye did not see what that had to do with anything, but that was usually how conversations with Roy began. They usually concluded with the implication that Roy had manipulated an incredibly complicated situation to end precisely as he had wanted all along, in such a way that no one could prove a thing.

“Sir?” she said.

“It’s just that this has never happened to me before,” Roy said, removing his glove in order to rub thoughtfully at his cheek. “I’m not sure how to react. Do I mope? Throw a fit? File a complaint? Burn her house to the ground?”

“I don’t think that would be wise, sir,” Hawkeye said.

Roy smiled thinly. “I suppose not. All of that aside, the real problem is that I’d already ordered two tickets to a show tonight.”

Knowing the kind of floozies Roy frequented—and Hawkeye did know them, all too well—she could guess what kind of weepy, maudlin, overstated musical tragedy the pair of them would have had plans to attend. It took a slightly considerable portion of Hawkeye’s indomitable willpower not to say, “Spoiler, sir: the maligned princess dies at the end, but not until she’s finished singing the closing number.”

Roy reached into the inside breast pocket of his open coat, not that Hawkeye had been noticing the minutest folds in his shirt beneath and the place where his collarbone was exposed, and retrieved two narrow slips of paper.

“Have you heard of _Thunder Rite_?” he asked. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it.”

Hawkeye had not ‘heard’ of _Thunder Rite_. She had _worshipped_ it since she had seen it the first time at the age of seven, in a massive theater with velvet curtains lined with gold, and had been utterly and completely enraptured by the on-stage cannons and the pyrotechnics and the fifty-actor battles and the undaunted mettle of the hero who couldn’t show his face—

“It’s excellent,” Hawkeye said, ironing the tremble out of her voice. “So long as they perform it properly, of course. You should find someone to go with you.”

Roy just smiled at her.

“Oh,” Hawkeye said, having trouble with that tremble now. “Sir. Thank you, sir.”

 

 

 

She gave Black Hayate a long look.

“Be good,” she said. “I’ll try not to be back too late.”

The dog blinked at her for a moment, and then his tongue lolled, and he wagged his tail emphatically. Hawkeye knelt down to scratch behind his ear.

“Wish me luck,” she said.

Hayate licked the back of her hand once and then beamed at her, which was almost certainly the canine version of a benediction.

“Good boy,” Hawkeye said.

 

 

 

Speaking of good boys, Roy sauntered out to their assigned meeting place precisely on time. Naturally, Hawkeye only knew as much because she had been waiting with the car for the past ten minutes—but that was her modus operandi, and anyone who didn’t like it was welcome to an imprint of her boot on their over-opinionated throat.

Roy was dressed simply but sharply, in plainclothes for once, and Hawkeye permitted herself a moment of small relief that she, too, had decided against the uniform tonight. As far as she was concerned, navigating the subtle social cues of any given situation made negotiating peace treaties look easy.

“You look nice, Lieutenant,” Roy said calmly, slipping into the seat beside her.

Knowing that he was looking at her— _had_ looked at her—even cared abstractly about the concept of looking at her enough to spare a glance—was an aggravatingly prevalent distraction.

“Thank you, sir,” Hawkeye said. “You as well.”

Apparently she still had the presence of mind for gross understatement.

“The show doesn’t start for a few hours yet,” Roy said. “Have you had anything to eat, Lieutenant?”

Damn. She knew she’d been forgetting something. At least there was no longer any mystery about why she’d had ample time to fiddle with a bit of makeup.

“No, sir.”

“Nor I,” Roy said. “How absentminded of me. I suppose we’ll have to remedy that, won’t we?”

 

 

 

Hawkeye and smalltalk got along about as well as Major Armstrong and subtlety. She was a soldier straight through, and it felt strange and slightly uncanny—sitting in a nice restaurant, surrounded by unknown persons, without having so much as scoped the back exit. It wasn’t that she didn’t know _how_ to act; subterfuge was easy, but it did nothing to alleviate the unpleasant sense that she didn’t belong here.

But Roy started talking, and Roy talked the way Roy did everything: with a smooth, self-assured command and a faint gleam of mischief in his eye. As Roy talked, Hawkeye relaxed, and the sharp edges of the room blurred a little until her surveys of it were almost comfortable.

Over dessert, Roy was complaining about a book that General Grumman had sent him, which was preoccupied with a Xingese philosophical concept of “finding one’s center.” Roy griped so exaggeratedly that she laughed, but Hawkeye knew precisely what Roy’s center was—a core of searing honor kindled with ambition, founded on absolute decency. Underneath it all, Roy was a single golden flame.

He was also a bastard who stole the bill before she could even glimpse the total.

 

 

 

“Explain this to me?” Roy said, looking at the rampaging berserker on the cover of the program with an interesting combination of confusion and delight.

“The protagonist is a magic-worker a bit like an alchemist,” Hawkeye said, “except that his magic gives him control over the weather. He’s badly mutilated when his kinsmen try to use him for a ritual sacrifice, but he escapes to an opposing kingdom. The king there promises to accept him into their state if he can complete a series of quests, which occupy the remainder of the storyline.”

Roy thumbed through the program, looking impressed.

“That sounds rather epic,” he said.

Hawkeye smiled. “It is quite epic, sir.”

Roy was smiling back as he shifted his focus to her face. Hawkeye’s knees twinged, but they knew very well that she would excise them with her own fingernails and replace them with automail if they quavered.

“You should let your hair down,” Roy said.

Hawkeye found her voice and dragged it out of its hiding place. “Would that be more appropriate?”

Roy reached around her head and undid the barrette. Her hair bounced against the back of her neck on the way down, and Roy pocketed the clip, smiling a little more.

“Where are our seats?” Hawkeye asked.

“The first balcony,” Roy said, taking her elbow despite the extremely unambiguous sign by the staircase.

 

 

 

 

“How are you liking it, Lieutenant?” Roy asked.

“Very well, sir,” Hawkeye said. “What do you think so far?”

“I think I’m going to need a glass of this obscenely overpriced wine if there’s more stage gore in the second half,” Roy said.

“There is, sir,” Hawkeye said. “But I would be happy to pay f—”

“Nonsense,” Roy said. “Are you in the mood for red or white?”

Only Colonel Roy Mustang could have _that_ much fun with a tiny plastic martini sword he had pilfered while the barman’s back was turned.

 

 

 

Hawkeye shut off the engine and walked Roy up to his door. She would have liked to claim that it was because their enemies were everywhere, but it was more a matter of not wanting tonight to end.

But it would. And she supposed that was all right. Perfection was highly unstable, but that was fair, because the same principle applied to pain.

“Goodnight, sir,” Hawkeye said. “Thank you for letting me join you this evening.”

Roy smiled. “My pleasure. Goodnight, Lieutenant.”

Hawkeye smiled back, and then she drew a deep breath, clenched her fists, let go of the moment gently, and started for the car.

“One more thing,” Roy said.

Hawkeye turned to face him. She wasn’t entirely sure she could take _one more thing_ without combusting, but she would try.

“Happy birthday, Riza,” Roy said.

Hawkeye blinked.

She blinked again.

She almost blurted out “How did you know?” before remembering that Roy Mustang made it his business—no, his personal mission—to know everything that was relevant about everyone who was relevant to anything.

“Sir,” Hawkeye said. All of the other things she could have said got stuck somewhere in the area of her larynx.

“After last time,” Roy said, “and the debacle with Fuery and Havoc trying to make that cake for Armstrong to jump out of, which was traumatic enough _before_ the food poisoning, I thought that perhaps you might like something a bit more low-key this year.”

“Sir,” Hawkeye managed. “Thank you, sir—I—just… _thank_ you.”

“I seem to recall from the rant last year that you don’t put much all that much stock in birthdays,” Roy said, “and to be honest, I usually don’t either. But sometimes it helps to have a specific date on which to show appreciation for someone who does things worth celebrating every day.” He flashed her a full-force rendition of the _Hello, I’m Colonel Roy Mustang, I look stunning in this uniform, and you’re going to fall madly in love with me_ grin, which hadn’t failed in as long as Hawkeye could remember. “So that’s that. Happy birthday—or, in other words, thank you for being exactly who you are.”

Hawkeye almost never cried, and she certainly never cried in public. Feeling the urge to do so building in the center of her chest, she compensated with a drastic counterstrike.

This particular offensive took the form of seizing Roy Mustang’s collar in both hands and kissing him soundly.

When she drew back, Roy was blinking in surprise almost as rapidly as she was.

“Sir!” she said, releasing his shirt abruptly and stepping back. “I apologize, sir, I—”

“Not at all, Lieutenant,” Roy said, which wouldn’t have been convincing except that his smile was already coming back, and it was slightly more devious now. “I’m just going to have to ask you to give me notice next time so that I can prepare to reciprocate.”

“Yes, sir,” Hawkeye said. He was the Flame Alchemist, all right—her cheeks were on fire. Somehow she found herself grinning anyway. “Certainly, sir.”

“Goodnight, then,” Roy said. “See you tomorrow, Lieutenant.”

Hawkeye saluted sharply and headed for the car.

When Roy’s birthday came around, she was going to fill his office with smiley-face balloons and frame Armstrong.


End file.
